


odd habits die hard

by aijee



Category: NU'EST, Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic, Established Relationship, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, OCD, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-03 13:03:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13341813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aijee/pseuds/aijee
Summary: Even though Jonghyun prefers Japanese cartoons to literature and works too-long lab hours to ever remember using the goddamn doormat, a month into cohabitation and Minhyun thinks this might work.





	odd habits die hard

**Author's Note:**

> my heart says 2hyun, my head also says 2hyun—so here, more 2hyun
> 
> (i don’t claim to be an expert in ocd or to have any firsthand experience with it, but this fic is something i have discussed on and off with a friend, who has ocd. everyone’s experiences are different! so please read with a grain of salt.)

 

“One could not do without repetition in life, like the beating of the heart,  
but it was also true that the beating of the heart was not all there was to life.”

Kōbō Abe, _The Woman in the Dunes_

 

* * *

 

Jonghyun has this habit of not wiping his shoes on the doormat before entering the apartment.

It doesn’t matter much since he always takes them off at the door, places them on the nearby shoe rack before adjusting the tilted picture frame on the left wall of the hallway. Minhyun is only ever a little peeved that there’s a perpetually dirty corner of their shared living space, but it’s a vast improvement from when they first started living together, so he lets it pass.

Today is a Tuesday so Jonghyun has his Tuesday burgundy sweater on with one sleeve more neatly folded to the elbow than the other. Minhyun notices this and stops Jonghyun to fix it even though he knows Jonghyun is just going to wash up. By the time Jonghyun emerges, smelling like Minhyun’s shower gel, Minhyun is at the kitchen island with shoulders curved slightly inward because he’s slouched over one of two bowls of pho now that their favorite Vietnamese place finally delivers.

“I’m not getting any younger. I need the circulation,” Minhyun says every time Jonghyun suggests he sit instead. “I burn more calories this way than sitting.”

“You make it sound like we’re already old. Which we aren’t,” Jonghyun responds every time as he sits on the bar stool closest to Minhyun. He turns the salt and pepper shakers so they’re facing the same direction and Minhyun lets out the breath he’d been holding. “Push your shoulders back or you’ll hurt your spine again.”

Tuesdays are Jonghyun’s longer days at the lab, so his brain is probably on the fritz. Minhyun knows this like the back of his hand.

When Jonghyun finally settles into the butt groove of his chair, Minhyun fills the air between them with soft chatter that sounds exciting enough to keep Jonghyun awake but isn’t immediately important to his survival. He’ll hear about whatever it is again tomorrow over breakfast, once before coffee and a second time after, because Minhyun is excited to share but also knows Jonghyun is only awake after his first cup.

“You know Kahi? The noona from marketing and design?” Minhyun will repeat after setting down, picking up, and setting down his breakfast chopsticks exactly seven times. “She’s getting married soon.”

He will then hand Jonghyun a dainty white envelope, calligraphy in gold foil because Kahi lives for subtle extravagance but at least she has some bone in her body for classic color schemes.

“I’m not opposed to going. It’s been a while since we’ve attended a function,” Jonghyun will say, careful not to disturb the neat rip in the paper as he extracts the invitation. “Is this the guy with the phone cases? And the goatee?”

“Yeah. She says he’s The One, but she said that last time, too.”

“Do you think we’ll get free phone cases if we go? I like free things. I kind of want to go now.”

“But the cost of everything else may offset that. The gifts, the transportation, the need to socialize, etcetera.”

“Hm, you’re right.” Minhyun usually is.

As Jonghyun digs into his noodles, Minhyun abandons his for the shoe rack, picks up Jonghyun’s loafers and digs through the grooves using a forefinger wrapped in three layers of tissue because another headache is on the rise. At least he doesn’t bite his nails when he’s bored like Jonghyun does.

Minhyun retreats to his pho after finishing up, pauses, and doubles back to the sink to wash his hands a few times before coming back. Luckily Jonghyun is a slow eater (he wasn’t always one) so Minhyun catches up pretty quickly.

“The hospital sample from last week got contaminated again,” Jonghyun says as he picks out the beansprouts from Minhyun’s soup and puts them in his own.

“Did you ask— oh, what’s his name. Jihoo, Jiyoung, Ji… The immunology guy who had dinner with us, I think?”

“Jisoo?”

“Isn’t that the new intern in derma?”

“No, the _other_ Jisoo.”

“Ah.”

“He doesn’t know what’s happening, either. I ordered new media, new reagents, used water so clean Jesus would be drunk on it. Still nothing.”

“Maybe it’s time to move on?” Minhyun suggests gently, helping Jonghyun with his beansprout transportation crusade.

Jonghyun shakes his head, quietly stubborn, as always. “I’m going to make it work. There’s still hope.”

Minhyun laughs, says, “Alright,” before talking about some noona’s wedding.

 

 

 

As far as Minhyun’s relationships go, this one started off pretty mediocrely. But once you start hitting half a decade, let alone the full dozen, the heft of “Once upon a time” starts sinking into the “Happily ever after.”

“Just because your thoughts run a million kilometers an hour doesn’t mean _you_ are fast,” explains Minhyun’s sister at the tea room the Hwangs frequented when she was still an Oxford undergrad. Now she’s teaching law (no one saw that coming), Minhyun (through some otherworldly miracle) has a job, and Jonghyun high fives her over steaming Cornish Earl Grey and lemon tartlets because he’s definitely told Minhyun the exact same thing before.

Minhyun is on the verge of calling Jonghyun’s own sisters for blackmail purposes with Jonghyun’s traitorous behavior so unsurprisingly blatant. After living more than three decades and probably a million lifetimes of secondhand embarrassment (from himself), Minhyun surely deserves more than this.

Sujin, as usual, sees that he’s about to say something and interjects, “Put two closet romantics together and of course you’d take a lifetime to make progress. But I’d sooner watch the sun shrivel than see whatever you guys’ve got die out, so it doesn’t even really matter, right?”

“What she said,” Jonghyun contributes eloquently through a bite of orange almond cake.

They high five again and Minhyun is 101% sure they’re conspiring behind his back. The rose petals and mini hand sanitizers in the hotel room should’ve indicated as much. Then again, Minhyun can shake the hand of today’s head pastry chef without feeling impending apocalypse crawling from his fingertips, so he supposes he’s grateful that his life took a U-turn somewhere from the shithole it was approaching.

“Dad’s calling,” Sujin notes, staring at her phone like it’s a parking ticket. “I’ll be back. I have a ladylike image to uphold in this dress and that’s not happening if I’m talking to him.”

“What ladylike image?” Minhyun calls after her. She lovingly flashes him a middle finger before walking past the gilded doors.

Jonghyun taps their knees together under the table. “You love your sister, right?”

“Aggressively.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

Minhyun starts returning the knee taps, counting in his head each one. “She’s everything to me. The heart of steel to my tin can body.”

“So when you say that I’ve won your heart, do you really mean that I’ve won your sister?”

“In all honesty, probably. She hasn’t been this smitten since her late bulldog.” Minhyun smiles softly at the lip of his teacup. He sips once, _twice_ —nope, thrice it is. “Don’t worry, she treats her pets well.”

With practiced precision, Jonghyun pokes his finger in the band between Minhyun’s true and false ribs. Even a complexly patterned dress shirt can’t stop him from making Minhyun squirm.

“Is this what it’s been about all along?” Jonghyun scoffs in his barrage. “Gifting me to your sister? To become the family butler and carry all her shopping bags? Is this what our love has been about all this time?”

Jonghyun has long established a mastery of seeming uncurious and polite about other people’s business, but know him long enough and you realize that his eyes have always betrayed him.

Since the beginning of lunch, they’ve been drifting on and off Minhyun and the cashmere overcoat he refused to let the hostess breath in the presence of, let alone hang in the coat closet. Minhyun has never been good at subtleties, especially if Jonghyun’s around, but he insists that he tried this time. He even roped Sujin into it, who’s as inconspicuous as a fire alarm.

Minhyun shoves Jonghyun away. “We all show our love in different ways,” he huffs, unsubtly reaching for the pocket of his coat.

Jonghyun laughs, eyes glittering. He says, “Don’t I know that.” His stomach is calling for another orange almond cake, but his gaze quickly finds the small box in Minhyun’s hand.

 

 

 

Minhyun left freshman year of college with 1) a near-crippling trauma of roommates and, by extension, people in general; and 2) a severely depleted savings account with how many clothes and bottles of mid-range alcohol he’d spent compensating for the first point.

He still put up a request on Facebook, looking for someone to cover the other half of his off-campus rent, because living alone is too expensive and on-campus housing is, by definition, a violation of decent living standards. Proper plumbing should be a human right, not a luxury.

“‘Must be male, shorter than one hundred eighty centimeters, cleans doorknobs regularly, does not and will never own a kazoo—’ okay, you really need to get over that,” comments Dongho as he squints through Minhyun’s list of roommate requirements.

“People who like kazoos also think Bill Nye is actually a science guy,” Minhyun mutters bitterly.

Dongho ignores him. “‘Appreciates Japanese literature, prefers wine to beer, replaces the toilet paper instead of stacking it on top of the holder like a degenerate heathen—’ You didn’t copy and paste this from your dating profile, did you?”

Minhyun kicks him, but spend enough Management 100 all-nighters with someone and you start picking up on their mannerisms, so Dongho dodges it.

“At least the ‘wipes shoes on doormat before entering’ thing sounds normal,” Dongho amends. Minhyun kicks him again anyway.

A week later, he gets about ninety percent of what he asked for.

Minhyun actually knew Jonghyun in high school—well, knew _of_ him the way you’d be vaguely aware of another person’s existence in a crowd.

Or, no.

It’s actually easy to spot Jonghyun in a crowd because he looks like a character or something from Minhyun’s childhood, has the face and disposition of a war veteran but proudly proclaims that “Bill Nye is a fraud!” in the middle of the café they meet at despite the awkward stares and muffled boo’s.

He doesn’t even mind telling Minhyun about the time he cut his fingers trying to close the stuck zipper on his pants. During a meeting. With his new boss.

“That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard,” Minhyun heaves through breathless laughter. This is the first time he tears up in years.

“You’d be surprised,” says Jonghyun with a grin. “Remember when I told you about that scholastic program I went on? The one in Spain?”

Minhyun nods.

That’s enough for Jonghyun to call the waitress for their bill. “Grab your stuff. I’m not drunk enough for this story yet.”

Minhyun has been a fighter straight from the womb, so there are some things he will never let go of. The spice bottles must be arranged in Korean alphabetical order, even when set aside for use. The lock of the front door must be checked at least nine times, but not more than thirteen, before leaving. These, amongst an extensive, non-exhaustive list of many others. However.

Even though Jonghyun prefers Japanese cartoons to literature and works too-long lab hours to ever remember using the goddamn doormat, a month into cohabitation and Minhyun thinks this might work.

“And that’s how I invaded a Spanish noblewoman’s yacht party,” concludes Jonghyun, cheeks flushed a pretty red and stretched over a proud, embarrassed smile. Even the bartender looks amused. “Did you know that the king of Spain has a secret drunk tramp stamp? ‘S wild. Oh, wait, maybe I’m talking about Aron. I guess it’s not a secret anymore, either. Sorry, Aron.”

It isn’t long before Minhyun is tearing up again. This isn’t the last time it happens.

 

 

 

Here is a typical conversation they have at least every month:

“Hey Jonghyun, I’m ordering from Amazon. Want anything?”

“Perfect timing. I really need some hangers. White, maybe ten or so.”

“Hangers?”

“Yes, hangers.”

“Hangers that aren’t black or blue or gray. White. White hangers.”

“Yup.”

“You said at least ten, right?”

“You betcha.”

“So ten or more white hangers?”

“Mhm.”

“Okay. Got it. Ten or more hangers. That are white. Thanks. Sorry, just wanted to make sure.”

“The only apologies to be had are from me to my dress shirts, which look less like shirts and more like motherly disappointment, to be honest. Speaking of, do you mind ordering some air fresheners as well—”

 

 

 

Neither of them are particularly social, but Jonghyun is friendly enough to amass a disturbing number of phone notifications at a time. “Lab meeting changed to 6pm,” “Badminton match on Wednesday – game?,” “NEW COUPON! Get your bananas and toilet cleaners at 20% off—”

Jonghyun’s phone screen looks like a rave party with how often it lights up and it drives both of them insane—Minhyun because of his nerves and Jonghyun because of Minhyun being so vocal about it. But Jonghyun eventually concedes and shuts his notifications altogether.

“I was getting tired of seeing lab requests for reagents anyway,” Jonghyun mumbles, probably still bitter that someone took his plasmids without permission.

Minhyun hums in affirmation as he adjusts the towel between his lap and Jonghyun’s head. (They graduate from The Towel shortly after.)

Like an hourglass, this kind of dynamic slowly dribbles into their everyday lives.

Watermelon season sees Jonghyun requesting for his change in denominational order lest Minhyun’s breathing get worrisome. Jonghyun learns to live in a double-speed world at a fourth of the pace because Minhyun shouldn’t be lonely when he brushes his teeth more than once. Jonghyun even ignores that Buy 1 Get 1 Free promo for cup ramen because anything in twos makes Minhyun restless; it pains Jonghyun, lord knows, but Minhyun makes up for it one day with a Buy 1 Get 2 Free coupon for pork belly.

Minhyun sometimes thinks his entire life is defined by habits that color his skin like tattoos done with industrial grade ink. Jonghyun has habits, too, like those use-with-water, rub-off-later things that kids are often stuck with.

But Minhyun is a child at heart so he plays with those use-with-water, rub-off-later things on Jonghyun sometimes because there isn’t any more space on himself. Jonghyun doesn’t mind.

(Then there are those habits Jonghyun just has, regardless of Minhyun’s existence: chewing on his pencil erasers; returning home on certain weekdays with uneven sleeves; smiling with his eyes whenever someone says his name. Minhyun sometimes wonders who might’ve given all that to Jonghyun.)

Time is often considered the universal cure-all for anything that’s been broken: bones, relationships, hearts. Doesn’t work for precious china, Minhyun would argue. Not for habits either. They’re still there, after all, two digits and two rings later.

(He actually bought three because some things feel better odd than even. Jonghyun doesn’t mind that, either.)

 

 

 

Minhyun has never been the type of person to get outwardly, fire-breathingly angry. Having relatives who respond to “I have a condition” with “So you’re a neat freak. What else is new?” threw him into kitchen early on. At least he got used to the heat pretty quickly.

But he’d be lying if he said he and Jonghyun have never fought, never fight, will never fight in the future. Jonghyun isn’t exactly the dictionary picture for “pissed off” when he feels that way, but even angels have a limit.

“It’s right there at the door, it’s not that fucking hard to—”

“Yeah, well, this might be hard for someone like you to understand,” Jonghyun says through his teeth, “But some of us have to work long hours in addition to studying longer hours because the world, let alone college, has it out for everyone even marginally below the middle class. I don’t have the parents or stocks to keep me from worrying about what to eat the next day. It’s the beginning of the week, my cultures are dying, and I’m really fucking tired, Minhyun. Can you just cut me some slack?”

Jonghyun looks twice his age in his post-presentation suit and slicked-back hair, but the mismatched socks beneath the dark slacks remind Minhyun of how young and desperate Jonghyun (and everyone else) still is.

Something lodges in Minhyun’s throat, makes having lungs kind of difficult with the voice in his head saying mean things again. His knees are quickly building a gambling addiction with his brain as to whether they’ll buckle to the floor in the next thirty seconds. It reminds Minhyun of the wrong floor cleaner he’d bought last week. _No one’s stupid enough to mistake orange for lemon but you somehow did, dumbass—_

When Jonghyun’s bag clangs against the ground, everything and everyone deflates.

“I’m sorry,” Jonghyun says, looking ashamed of himself. He steps closer to Minhyun, but doesn’t touch him. “I promise I don’t mind everything else. Really. Honestly. Today has been— it’s just—” he sighs and rubs his hand across his face, “If it’s possible, can you let this one thing go? Please?”

Minhyun thinks absently about how often Jonghyun must rub his face with his hands, about how many germs are on his face because of it. Premature wrinkles won’t look good on Jonghyun.

Then he thinks about the way Jonghyun always rushes home to open the front door after Minhyun unlocks and locks it too many times to unlock it again. He thinks about the way Jonghyun arranges his textbooks in order of size now that Minhyun is comfortable enough to barge into his room to whine about doorknobs. Even after a shitty day, Jonghyun still stopped by the pharmacy because Minhyun realized how screwed he was for his finance paper due tonight and needed to stay home to finish it.

Something warm and untouched by dark, inky thoughts finds a home in Minhyun’s chest.

“I can try,” is what he settles on. “No promises I won’t accidentally bring it up again, though.”

Jonghyun cracks a smile. “Just not on Tuesdays. If you can help it.”

 

 

 

 

None of this is to say that Minhyun doesn’t deal with Jonghyun and his lifestyle. Perfect people are only perfect when you don’t get to know them.

Their most difficult months quickly arrive after graduation, unseen like a pop-up circus act—Minhyun is in some unresolved limbo of employed and not-employed while Jonghyun juggles both rent and their survival in general. Minhyun has some reserves in his bank account to keep the fridge stocked and rice bucket filled, but trudging to the nearest McDonald’s for the free Internet ends up being a struggle, more mentally than physically.

“And I thought using my grandmother’s change jar for textbook rentals was a new low,” Jonghyun mutters bitterly to the background music of robotic order confirmations and crying children, one of which was Minhyun a couple days ago after a brutal rejection letter from Seven Eleven.

“On the bright side, we can still afford to eat,” Minhyun supplies through the earphones connected to Jonghyun’s phone.

Jonghyun grunts. “Our T-money cards are void.”

“Walking is good exercise.”

“You can’t buy medicine.”

“I’ve coped without it before.”

“We can’t even check emails at home.”

“But we can go home to intact plumbing! Remember sophomore spring when our toilet revolted? Yikes. I would, too, if I was that toilet.”

“Fuck this, fuck _everything,”_ Jonghyun declares, loudly and aggravated beyond measure, before packing up his things and storming past curious kids and their traumatized parents. Jonghyun doesn’t speak to anyone until he finishes drafting his research proposal.

Minhyun always thought of himself as the more prideful one between them. He’s not wrong, as Jonghyun’s profuse apology the next day will tell Minhyun, but absolute correctness is as much of an illusion as miracles are.

At least that’s what Minhyun tells himself when he lands a job at a small advertising agency, hopefully on merit alone, if not mainly merit with his face to supplement it.

He excitedly barges into the apartment at the ninth unlock, promptly yelling out, “Jonghyun! Jonghyun! Guess who can afford nice detergent again because he has a _fucking job!”_ like he expects to see Jonghyun at the coffee machine with a half-chewed pencil at his ear, ready to greet Minhyun with caffeine and a boxy smile.

Jonghyun isn’t there.

In his place are the lifeless silhouettes of empty mini sour cream potato chip bags, a beach of crumbs surrounding them, and a half-finished Powerade on the coffee table. The corpse of a scarf is draped over the sofa arm, decorated with strange stains like shadows of the fingers that once held it. Even the couch is a mess with its throw pillows actually thrown and blanket _touching_ the _floor_ god forbid.

Minhyun counts in his head—counts until his fingernails stop digging into his palm, until his toes stop trying to curl themselves off and until his head voice stops being so crude.

He’s having a good day. He refuses to let that be untrue. It might not be the same for Jonghyun, but maybe Minhyun can try to help.

After restoring the balance of the living room, Minhyun finds Jonghyun asleep at his desk in a state of passed-out so deep, breaths so full and steady, that Minhyun just stands there and stares, even when surrounded by a disarray of loose notebook papers, three generations of calculators, and another half-finished Powerade.

It’s not difficult, pulling Jonghyun to bed and cleaning his face with a damp hand towel. It’s not difficult, knowing how to tidy Jonghyun’s gears without disturbing the machine.

Actually, there are a lot of things Minhyun doesn’t find difficult with Jonghyun. Minhyun doesn’t realize that until a few minutes later, when he’s washing his hands.

He only washes them once.

 

 

 

Most stories Minhyun reads depict summer or spring as peak seasons for first kisses, framed by sunshine and sticky sweet popsicles or a flower shower thanks to trees suffering from whatever the plant variant of dandruff is.

Instead, Minhyun kisses Jonghyun during the first snow after graduation. They’re somehow still living together in the same shitty apartment for which Jonghyun magically fixes the heater because chances are the maintenance staff aren’t awake at four in the morning.

Somehow it doesn’t feel right, so Minhyun does it again. Still not right, so he does it three more times until his head stops hurting the way it does when something is off. But the ease of hitting the right number evaporates when he realizes what he’s done. There’s that paralyzing surge of anxiety shooting through his veins again as he observes the aftermath in Jonghyun’s astonished expression.

“Doing it once didn’t feel right,” Minhyun verbalizes hesitantly. His eyes are a movie reel with how fast they’re darting on and off and on and off and on and off Jonghyun’s face.

“I didn’t think so either,” Jonghyun replies, sharp defenses softening into something strangely akin to relief. “If I do it, will I have to do it five times, too?”

Minhyun shrugs, picking at some loose threads in his shirt. He should cut those soon. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”

Jonghyun yawns, motions Minhyun over. “We can find out tomorrow. Let’s sleep.”

They don’t stay in the same bed, and it won’t be years until they do, but Jonghyun still yells at him from beyond the bedroom door to wake Minhyun up for his therapy appointment. A soft whack on the wall is enough for Minhyun to say, “Let me sleep,” and that’s enough for Jonghyun to let him do just that.

They don’t get around to fulfilling Jonghyun’s promise that day, so Minhyun reminds him the day after.

Even though the crows in Minhyun’s head never sleep, when Jonghyun kisses him those five times, Minhyun feels something close enough to silence.

 

 

 

Minhyun and Jonghyun, after some coffee and cocktails, agree to sign the leasing contract together. Not long after, Minhyun has a panic attack.

He’s embarrassed, honestly, because he thought he’d had that part of himself under lock since high school. So for it to rise from the ashes without preamble, and right when having a roommate started not sucking, makes Minhyun worry over what little he’s already built with someone who apparently isn’t fazed by his fixation with doorknobs.

When Jonghyun finds him, he has no fucking clue what to do with his hands.

“Oh— oh god. Minhyun! _Minhyun!_ Fuck. Shit. Fucking shit. Um.”

If Minhyun had a stable enough foot in the plane of existence, he would’ve laughed at that.

But the only reality is that in which Minhyun is lying on the bathroom floor in fetal position, breaths following the rhythm of a metronome jacked to its fastest setting. There are tear streaks, thick ones, in all directions across his cheeks like face paint, but water is translucent so there’s no hiding behind this mask.

Minhyun vaguely recalls Jonghyun dropping to his knees to the bathroom rug, mumbling in something that sounds less like language and more like panic, with hands raised like a surgeon awaiting his tools. But Jonghyun lost his toolbox a while back so he awkwardly jabs the air around Minhyun, as if trying to crack some barrier that isn’t (or is) there with Minhyun’s “No direct contact” rule probably still fresh in his mind.

Suddenly Jonghyun’s usual “Don’t worry about it” starts sounding like “WhatdoIdo, whatdoIdo, oh god Minhyun _what do I do_ —”

At least the fuzz is back, that strange cotton thing that likes to encroach on Minhyun’s vision and throat when he gets like this. It’s a little itchy, but it’s soft and doesn’t tell Minhyun mean things. It makes him get all quiet as well, but it’s better than the chanting his brain does in ritual for the sleeping demon somewhere inside him.

In that moment, Minhyun remembers what Sujin told him back when puberty was hitting Minhyun like a truck and not in a good way.

“Look at me,” she had commanded, holding his face between her hands. She had been staring at him so hard, her soul was spilling from its windows into his. “Find something in space to concentrate on,” inhale, exhale, “Focus on it like it’s your goddamn life’s mission,” inhale, exhale, “Until it’s the only thing you know is real.”

Inhale, exhale.

She had also said something about the importance of reference points, something about navigation and anchors and some extended ship metaphor that Minhyun wasn’t a fan of because of how cliché it sounded.

“Oh, maybe this—”

Something fuzzy wraps around Minhyun’s head, but it’s recognizably tangible this time, a bit damp and smelling faintly of his own shower gel. A towel—his, he realizes.

“Minhyun, hey, b-buddy, look at me,” Jonghyun stutters out as he holds up the steady weight of Minhyun’s head in his unsteady hands, a towel cradle in between. “Hey, yeah, it’s me. Jonghyun. Your r-roommate? That’s me. Want to do some breathing exercises together? Let’s do some breathing exercises together.”

Minhyun stares at him, pushes his gaze against Jonghyun’s so adamantly and fiercely that he wonders if his soul is spilling from its windows into Jonghyun.

“Hee _hoo,_ hee _hoo_ —that’s it!—hee _hoo_ , hee _hoo_ —”

Minhyun will laugh over this over dinner the next day, will jokingly ask Jonghyun “What the fuck was ‘hee hoo’?” and follow up with “You could’ve dialed 119 or called my family or, I don’t know, grabbed a paper bag like a normal person.”

To this, Jonghyun will frown for the first time in front of a steaming bowl of his favorite pho and mumble, ears glowing, “Why do you think I dropped premed?”

Minhyun will laugh the night away, pay for the bill, and leave Jonghyun’s favorite Vietnamese place with a full stomach and fuller heart. His back will ache horribly for days because bathroom tiles are more malicious than the general public assumes, and Jonghyun will get an earful from Sujin every Saturday when she Skypes Minhyun because she’s a hyperbole personified and greets Jonghyun for the first time with “You nearly killed my brother _you dingus_.”

But, for now, all Minhyun can think of is Jonghyun, of the way his fingers are unintentionally digging into Minhyun’s cheekbones through the towel, of the way Jonghyun is becoming increasingly panicked as Minhyun finds it in himself to do the opposite. It’s as if Jonghyun is trying to shoulder Minhyun’s burdens despite their short history together.

“You’re real,” Minhyun utters when his ribs stop being a cage for origami birds. “You’re real.”

Jonghyun twists his face the same way he always does when he’s confused; that’s enough to tell Minhyun that, yes, Jonghyun is real. The scent of shower gel is real. The floor and what it’s doing to Minhyun’s spine is very, unfortunately real.

“I am,” Jonghyun says, more through his eyes than his words. “And so are you.”

 

 

 

Here is another typical conversation they have at least every month:

“Are you okay with this? With us?”

“I am.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“ _Sure_ sure?”

“Very.”

“But I’m a pain to deal with.”

“You aren’t.”

“You should be with someone who isn’t so…antsy all the time.”

“I think you’re fine.”

“Or who doesn’t obsess over doorknobs. And curtains. And floor tiles. And washing their hands every hour. Well, every two hours now.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I’m sorry. I keep repeating myself. I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need to be. What do you want for dinner?”

 

 

 

They celebrate becoming roommates with a meal at Jonghyun’s favorite Vietnamese place, or rather the food Jonghyun brings from there since it doesn’t deliver and Minhyun is too reluctant to leave home with his life in the hands of an almost-stranger.

Jonghyun tells him that it used to be his and Minki’s place when they suffered through introductory chemistry and the witch (with a “b” instead of a “w”) who taught it. But now that Minki is actually enjoying organic chem, he and Jonghyun aren’t on particularly amiable terms. Somehow Jonghyun kai-bai-bo’ed his way to “dibs” ownership, so naturally he had to introduce Minhyun at some point.

“I hate beansprouts,” is the first thing Minhyun says when Jonghyun finishes arranging the food.

He expects his new acquaintance to bite back with a retort, or to respond with the artificial civility people wear like an M&M coating. Call it caution or cynicism, it’s all the same. But perhaps Minhyun should’ve taken a cue from the round-trip Jonghyun made in his adamant quest to feed Minhyun what’s apparently the tastiest pho in town.

“My fault, I should’ve asked,” Jonghyun says, absent of hesitation or anything remotely judgmental. “Everyone eats their pho differently. I can eat your beansprouts if you want.”

Jonghyun reaches over to move the beansprouts from Minhyun’s bowl, that is until he notices how hard Minhyun is staring at him.

“My chopsticks are still clean.” Jonghyun says it like it’s an apology. “Or I can order pizza if you can’t eat this anymore.”

“Are you human?” Minhyun asks.

Jonghyun looks at him, confused. “Have you met people who would make you think otherwise?”

“Yeah,” Minhyun says. “You.”

Jonghyun laughs, both astounded and still confused but he’s the type to roll with things so he just prompts Minhyun with raised eyebrows, asks, “May I?” with chopsticks pointed at those darned beansprouts.

Unable to think of another response, Minhyun nods and watches as Jonghyun moves the beansprouts between the bowls. It’s calming, weirdly enough, seeing the way Jonghyun cradles his chopsticks with care, moves his cargo with a sense of sureness and muted determination unseen in Minhyun’s own movements. Not even normal people move like that.

“Lucky for you, I love beansprouts,” comments Jonghyun when he’s almost finished. “Fiber and all that.”

“I can eat this,” Minhyun confirms, warm in the face. “The pho, I mean. Not the beansprouts. No need for pizza.”

Jonghyun hums, pulling his bowl towards himself like a poor, starving college student. Which he is, now that Minhyun thinks about it. “Thank goodness. I love this stuff, but it makes my wallet cry so I only ever get it during special occasions.”

“I can—”

“It’s okay.” Jonghyun looks ridiculous, smiling at Minhyun over the steam of the soup. His eyes are shaped like moons, but they seem too bright to be reflections of something brighter. “It’s my treat. Try it?”

Minhyun realizes that it’s only when he starts eating that Jonghyun will, so he braces himself, heart pounding inexplicably.

He goes through the steps: take chopsticks, peel wrapping (removed in more than one piece, grab another set, repeat until one piece only), pluck apart, inspect (two brown spots, grab another, repeat until clear of spots), set down, pick up, set down, pick up, set down, pick up (dinner is only three rounds).

Minhyun has no reason to look at Jonghyun after, but he does anyway.

“They’re free. Might as well snag a bunch,” Jonghyun says, shrugging. He motions for Minhyun to eat, his own bowl losing steam but still untouched in wait for the holy choir to sing Minhyun’s name when he finally eats.

Somehow, a smile makes its way to Minhyun’s face. What a stubborn guy.

 

 

 

Fifteen-year-old Minhyun has no idea what to eat for dinner, let alone what to do with his life, but something about entering high school tells him that he should get a fucking move on with a brainstorm or something.

Parents usually coerce their children into being some big corp employee to work to their deathbed since that’s the most honorable thing to do. Slap on a trophy wife and children who’ll perpetuate the bloodline and you’ve got yourself the picture-perfect conservative, East Asian household dream. Minhyun, who was never a cookie cutter case in the first place, eventually does a Robert Frost and says “fuck it” to the beaten path, but he doesn’t know that yet.

He begrudgingly sits in this weird left-middle seat his homeroom teacher assigns him even though he prayed the entire summer for a window seat, but fifteen-year-old Minhyun is disillusioned with the idea of there being a god so doesn’t question the situation further.

To block out the drawl of his teacher, Minhyun starts tapping his pencil. _One, two, three—_

He glances at the column of seats by the windows. Pros: prime creeper spot for getting distracted by students in phys ed, distinct protagonist status, sunlight. Cons: cold drafts in the winter, possible obligatory adventure story, sunlight. Think of how many bacteria empires are there, too, commanding their reign. Not worth.

_Seven, eight, nine—_

In a sea of black coconut heads enters another, to which Minhyun misses the cold slopes of Yongpyong too much to be in a tropical mood. But something about the face under this bowl cut strikes Minhyun as worth noticing.

_Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen—_

He doesn’t know why or how. There are a lot of things Minhyun doesn’t know and it makes the voice in his head mature faster than Minhyun can process his real thoughts.

But this thought wiggles into his gray matter without him knowing, finds the core of his amygdala and hibernates there for Minhyun to find at twenty when he catches a glimpse of what the abyss may look like.

_Thirty-nine, forty, forty-one—_

“Kim Jonghyun,” announces the teacher, and coconut head #15 nods. “You can sit over there where Minhyun—can you wave your hand, Minhyun? Thanks—yeah, so between him and the window.”

Jonghyun meets Minhyun’s eyes with the same foreign acknowledgement as Minhyun offers.

They’re still sprouting in every direction and girls are scientifically the actual worst. Sunshine is sticky but so are feelings, and Minhyun won’t realize he has them until his third year when he confesses to this cute underclassman with long hair and mole on her neck. She teaches him that rejections can be synonymous to apologies. The following year, Minhyun makes apologies synonymous to greetings. He will realize they aren’t the same.

_Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven—_

Habits are hard to shake, but when Minhyun meets someone named Dongho in his first college class, he will call Minhyun a snake—not because of Minhyun’s questionable character (that happens later) but because of Minhyun’s potential to shed his flimsy parchment skin eccentricities. Like an onion, he will say. A man of words, that Dongho.

_Seventy-one, seventy-two, seventy-three—_

But fifteen-year-old Minhyun carries little in his skull aside from some strange ticking noise and the voice that sometimes says rude things. Minhyun wears his defense mechanisms like armor because that’s what all kids do these days.

Well, most kids.

_One hundred—_

“Do you have an eraser I can use?”

_Is it one hundred? One hundred and one? Shit._

“I chewed them off my pencils.” Jonghyun is speaking to him, Minhyun realizes. “I forgot to ask my mom for some more.”

“That’s gross,” Minhyun says with a scowl. Not only did he lose track of his counting, but now this weirdo who chews pencil erasers is asking for an eraser to chew off. In a similar fashion, probably.

Jonghyun sighs through his nose. “My sisters tell me that all the time. That I have bad habits I should fix.”

Minhyun shakes his head. There’s a weird prickle on his skin. “Here.” He hands over the pencil he’d been using earlier, tip-tapping against the table. “Try not to chew off this one. But if you do, I won’t judge you.”

“You already did.”

“I won’t judge you any more, then.”

“Oh. Why?”

Minhyun hands Jonghyun another pencil so the feng shui or whatever of his pencil case stays balanced. He doesn’t know why he hates even numbers, why keeping everything not-even feels like paying obeisance to some non-existent deity rather than living through a simple foible, but maybe this kid can understand.   

“Everyone’s got their quirks,” Minhyun says, absentmindedly flipping his textbook pages to the white noise of his teacher’s introduction. “I wouldn’t call them ‘bad,’ I guess. Just part of who we are.”

Jonghyun nods, thanks Minhyun for the pencils, and doesn’t speak to Minhyun until five years later when an interesting Facebook post pops up on their uni housing page.

Maybe Minhyun was destined for the window seat, but he’s glad Jonghyun took it instead.

 

 

 

Jonghyun is wearing a black suit and Minhyun a white one when they’re holding hands to church bells. This isn’t the first time they do that. (Citation: Barcelona and Minhyun’s unrelated desire to invade a Spanish noblewoman’s yacht party.) There are just some things that never get old.

Minhyun and Jonghyun aren’t on the coveted list of immortality, but maybe whatever it is between them can file for an application.

Someone is crying and Minhyun bets the Roomba Aron gifted him that it’s either Mama Hwang or Sujin—the former because her son is finally getting hitched after tiptoeing the subject for longer than mothers can handle, and the latter because her favorite pack mule is now legally bound to the family.

His father isn’t there after knowing that Minhyun won’t be sprouting another family branch any time soon. But Sujin promises to pass down the name with her genes even if it means shoving the paperwork down the registration office worker’s throat, so at least there’s compromise.

“I can’t believe my son married a prince,” Jonghyun’s mother says when she greets the happy couple at dinner time. Her eyes gleam every time she calls Minhyun that.

From Minhyun’s side, Jonghyun pouts. “What am I, a sack of sweet potatoes?”

“Good thing Minhyun loves sweet potatoes, then,” Mrs. Kim says, unfazed. God, Minhyun loves her. “Remind me to cook some glazed ones when you two visit in December.”

Every living cell in Minhyun’s body perks at that; Jonghyun’s mom makes _the best_ glazed sweet potatoes. That woman is made of so much love and sugar, it’s almost no wonder that Jonghyun is who he is.

“Thank you for continuing to keep my son on track,” Jonghyun’s father says despite his son’s red-faced protests about being a perfectly operational human being. “He’s become so much more responsible thanks to you.” Now it’s Minhyun’s turn to flush.

By the time the slower music starts kicking in, Jonghyun’s father has already swept his wife onto the dance floor with an infatuated expression so timeless that Minhyun wonders how long it would take him to perfect that expression himself. Jonghyun already has. Maybe it’s a hereditary thing.

“If it’s any consolation,” says Minhyun, “I can’t believe I married a knight in shining armor. Maybe we should’ve gone for a fairy tale theme.”

Jonghyun gags before taking a sip of champagne. “Are you normally this gross, or is it the bubble?”

“You tell me, roomie.”

“Husbands.”

“Civil partner?”

_“You proposed.”_

Minhyun snickers. His headspace has been surprisingly cooperative today.

Jonghyun fiddles with the silk gloves Minhyun decided to wear throughout the ceremony. He’s improved tremendously, but greeting half-strangers who probably knew nothing about respecting personal bubbles is still a bit daunting.

When Jonghyun finishes his flute, he sees that Minhyun’s slipped out of his gloves with one hand outstretched. There’s an even slower song playing in the background, something only their living room and bonsai collection have seen them dance to.

Jonghyun glances from the open palm Minhyun offers to the thin chain around Minhyun’s neck, from which their new wedding band hangs. Something about taking it off his finger intermittently for cleaning seemed inconvenient.

“Want to waltz with me?” Minhyun asks, a bit shy.

“I didn’t memorize a new step scheme for nothing,” Jonghyun agrees, smiling.

 

 

 

There’s a point at which you get past the figurative skin pigment, the face paint masks, the make-up dinners and symbolic jewelry. Behind the reminders is a security that makes the point A to point B more obvious, sure, but security doesn’t erase what made the connecting line so erratic in the first place.

Minhyun knows this, knows how they both operate, like the back of his hand—at least, the way someone would if they majored in studying the backs of hands. Years after graduation, when life has weathered down the details and cemented the holes, the essence of whatever they are is still there like an internalized bullet point.

Jonghyun may have dropped a career of zipping in and out of clinics, and Minhyun may have had no idea what to do with his life in the first place. But they’ve somehow ended up here, in this intersection of time and space, together.

After all, two numbers make up a single coordinate—a reference point, so to speak. It’s one of the few things in pairs Minhyun finds himself okay with.

“One day, I’m going to wipe my shoes on the doormat and you’re going to be so hecking ecstatic,” Jonghyun says between slurps. “Maybe that should be your next birthday present. I spent too much money on Barcelona.”

“You spent too much money on alcohol and spiced nuts in Barcelona,” Minhyun corrects. Jonghyun doesn’t.

It’s a Tuesday, so Jonghyun has his Tuesday burgundy sweater on with one sleeve more neatly folded to the elbow than the other. He breaches routine for once and doesn’t wash up yet so that Minhyun’s efforts to fix his sleeves don’t go to waste prematurely.

Minhyun hesitantly bites into a beansprout—better, but still poison.

“Will you cry if I wipe my feet on the doormat?”

“Probably.”

“Out of happiness?”

“Does it matter? I’m an ugly crier either way.”

Jonghyun says a sappy spiel about loving Minhyun forever, through thick and thin and whatever other vows they’ll probably make when they get married.

Even when Minhyun ages into a walking complex of wrinkles and flab?

Yes.

Even with all the toilet dates Jonghyun will go on from forgetting he’s mildly lactose-intolerant?

Definitely.

Even after they fight? Or get sucker-punched by old habits? Or realize that “forever” is a lot longer than either of them bargained for?

Of course.

The goop is more saccharine than usual today, but Tuesdays are Jonghyun’s longer days at the lab, so his brain is probably on the fritz. Minhyun lets it pass.

To either Minhyun’s chagrin or pleasant surprise, neither will know, Jonghyun finally uses the doormat on Minhyun’s birthday. And, to either his chagrin or pleasant surprise, Minhyun actually cries.

This won’t be the last time it happens, but some things worth going through happen more than once. Or twice. Or thrice—

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> inspirations:  
> 1\. this [poem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnKZ4pdSU-s)  
> 2\. this [work of art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11906517)  
> 3\. my friend ella (who may know nothing about kpop, but is a master of endurance and noticing the most beautiful things in life. ily babe)
> 
> thank you so much for reading! i'd love to know what you think. x
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](https://aijee.tumblr.com)


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